[Sick leave risk factors in a sample of women employed in the public sector. The SEMM study].

OMS reports describe an increase of levels of sickness leaves (SL) at work in all industrialized countries in last decades. Aims of this study are to assess incidence of SL from work in a sample of women public employees and to identify significant factors, among individual, behavioural, familiar, occupational and work strain related. The survey took place between April 1992 and December 1998.

["The Italian decree 195/2006 on the protection of workers against risks arising from noise"].

The Italian decree 195/2006 incorporates the European Directive 2003/10/CE on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (noise). It is rather different to previous decree 277/1991, particularly as regard of the new exposure limit value and the elimination of annex VI and VII. We discus here only two aspects that we consider relevant and quite critical: 1) The calculation of the exposure limit values as noise equivalent level: it is a method that underestimates the potential damage of impulsive noise, so the risk evaluation remains quite inaccurate.

[Research and formal demonstration of evidence of efficiency in occupational medicine].

There is an increasing pressure on occupational health professionals to ensure that their practice is based on a quality standard and an evidence of appropriateness. The efficacy-effectiveness of their activity strictly depends on their intellectual and professional integrity, their technical and legal competence, but also on the quality of the relations with the company organisation they are able to establish. We asked to some occupational physician when they considered their interventions in the workplace to be efficacious.

[Job stress in the service industry. Evaluation of the Italian version of the Job Content Questionnaire].

Background: Recent changes in work organization have greatly expanded the service industry, where stress perception appears to be the major factor of discomfort. Job stress remains a critical issue in occupational exposure assessments.

Objectives: To assess the compliance and the consistency of the three major constructs (Psychological Job Demand (PJD); Decision Latitude (DL); and Social Support at Work (SSW)) of the Italian version of the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) adopted in the MOPSY and JACE studies and their gender-specific distributions in a large sample of civil servant in northern Italy.

[Reliability of the Karasek scale in the assessment of perceived occupational stress and gender-related differences in scores. The SEMM study].

In recent years more attention has been paid to the relationship between work organization and job stress and chronic-degenerative diseases. Aims of this report are the assessment of the reliability and internal consistency of the Karasek's Job Content Questionnaire-JCQ and to assess age-specific distributions of core JCQ scores between the gender groups. The study has been carried out in a large group of employees (n.

[The assessment of the coronary risk in a work setting. The results of the SEMM study and the outlook for prevention in Italy. Surveillance of Employees Municipality of Milan].

Background: The goals of the present report are to assess the differences in distribution of traditional coronary risk factors in a work setting, aimed at identifying specific groups at risk and to compare mean values of such risk factors and of an overall risk score of the entire working sample with the results observed in the third WHO-MONICA population survey carried out in northern Italy (Area Brianza).

Methods: In the SEMM study 7872 employees (2601 men and 5271 women) were enrolled between 1992 and 1996. The third MONICA survey in Brianza was carried out on an age- and gender-stratified random sample of 831 men and 884 women in 1993-1994, selected from the 25-64-year-old residents of five municipalities, representative of the study population.

[Auditory thresholds in young Italians from 18-19 years of age].

The aim of the study was to assess the state of hearing levels in young Italian subjects via an epidemiological study, and also, by means of a questionnaire, to assess the attitude of young people to music, how they listen to music and how they perceive the risk of noise-induced hearing damage. The sample studied consisted of 391 youths undergoing their first medical examination for military service. The hearing threshold was assessed by means of a semiclinical tonal audiometry with sound-proof earphones calibrated to ISO Standard 389 following the method of ISO Standard 6189.

[Validation of the Italian version of the Kjellberg and Iwanowski's Mood Scale].

Two questionnaires were administered to evaluate stress risk factors in 1652 employees of the Milan Town Council (772 Social Service personnel and 880 administrative staff). The study was focused on cardiovascular diseases. The Mopsy questionnaire is a selection of scales selected by the World Health Organization for international multicenter studies on cardiovascular morbidity, while the Mood Scale of Kjellberg & Iwanowski (1989) is a brief scale translated from Swedish used to measure "actual" stress and arousal state in neurotoxicology.

[Hearing loss in workers in the ceramics industry: a profile of the damage assessed by a longitudinal study].

Over the period 1980-1990, 2024 workers in ceramic plants in the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy were evaluated for exposure to noise and hearing loss. Data collected by the National Health Service Local of Occupational and Preventive Medicine Units were used. In a relatively young population (34.

[The determination of the criteria for selecting and using personal means of acoustic protection].

The most frequent occupational disease in Italy is noise-induced hearing loss. Not only is this disease invalidating and irreversible, it also involves extremely high direct and indirect costs for both the injured worker and the employer. Appropriate preventive measures are therefore essential and include personal protection devices.

[An integrated course in occupational medicine. A proposed teaching program based on the new organization of the degree course in medicine and surgery].

The curriculum of Italian Medical School of the Faculty of Medicine has been recently renewed at a national level. Considering the numerous innovations introduced, a new role has been attributed to the teaching of occupational health, particularly occupational medicine. Occupational Medicine is usually regarded as a part of community medicine and, despite the fact that occupational disease may be in decline in industrially developed countries, the increasing concern regarding environmental pollution related health effects, stress the relevance of the methodologies already formulated within the occupational health disciplines.

A clinical, neurophysiological and behavioral study of female workers exposed to 1,1,1-trichloroethane.

Twenty-two female subjects working in a factory in which 1,1,1-trichloroethane was the only solvent used were investigated by means of clinical, neurophysiological and psychometric methods so that the neurotoxicity of the solvent could be evaluated. On the basis of the ambient air concentrations of 1,1,1-trichloroethane ranging from 110 to 990 ppm, the workers were divided into three risk groups and compared with a reference group. No significant difference was observed between the exposed and unexposed females with respect to clinical features, maximal motor conduction velocity, conduction velocity of slow fibers, and psychometric data.

[Lead arsenate as an underestimated cause of polyneuropathy in rural environment: description of two cases].

Two cases of lead arsenate polyneuropathy are described in two farmers from the same rural area; the etiology of the neurologic al disorder was ascertained only after repeated hospital admissions. It was a neuropathy of the radial nerve associated with signs of peripheral impairment of the lower limbs with pains and paresthesias. Abdominal colies, arterial hipertension, anaemia and signs of renal impairment were also present.